New contact methods in start-ups’ selling process

The increasing adoption of digital technologies by companies in business-to-business (b2b) opens for some opportunities for start-ups that due to their liabilities are generally not well equipped on their marketing and commercial side but are at the same time often digitally skilled. Although the role of social media for start-ups in b2b contexts has been increasingly examined, we have limited understanding of whether start-ups are aware of the potential of new technologies for developing customer relationships and how these are eventually used vis à vis other, more personal (face-to face), methods of contact/communication in different ‘phases’ of the selling process, but also more in general in their communication activity. Drawing on 19 semi-structured interviews with founders and managers of 10 start-ups companies and other actors operating in the aerospace sector from Italy, we have examined how the start-ups evaluate what methods of contact to use when they approach potential customers and when communicating externally The study contributes to the IMP literature on start-ups by zooming into a micro process such as start-ups’ decisions on contact methods and content strategy in relation to potential customers and other stakeholders.